Bangalore-based Wipro Technologies also asked its employees to abstain from smoking within office space including car parking areas, balconies and even outdoor walkways.
Major firms like IBM, O&M, Ernst and Young, Google, and many others have issued advisories to all their employees, asking them to abstain from smoking within office premises.
In a communication to its employees, the company said that "anyone who does not comply with the rules could face a penalty or legal action".
Cigarette makers said it was too early to assess the impact of the ban on sales and a clear picture would emerge in a few days. Some vendors told Business Standard that they did not expect sales to drop in the days to come.
Rajesh Kumar, a tobacco products seller in New Delhi, was confident his customers would not desert him.
"Smokers will smoke," he said, adding he hoped to continue selling about 50 packets a day. In Delhi, the ban on smoking in public places is already there. The administration has fined 1,131 people for smoking in the capital till July 31 this year.
Official figures say that with its 240 million tobacco users, India has annual cigarette sales of about 102 billion sticks. But that is still a small market compared to China's, where, says World Health Organisation, one of every three cigarettes in the world is smoked.
Major firms like IBM, O&M, Ernst and Young, Google, and many others have issued advisories to all their employees, asking them to abstain from smoking within office premises.
Image: A hawker sells roasted nuts in front of an anti-tobacco bilboard on the eve of the world Tobacco day | Photograph: Prakash Singh/AFP/Getty Images
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